“Izzy,” Cloudme thought to her. “I’m dead.”
“I can see that,” she sent back to me.
“You said she was a beast, but I wasn’t expecting her to do over 180 life damage in a single shot! It was almost an instant kill!” It had happened so quickly, Cloudme couldn’t hardly believe he was floating here while my corpse lay crumpled on the floor nearby.
“I don’t think it was an instant kill,” Isabella told me. “From what I could tell by watching your health in the party menu, I’d guess she did about 1/4 of your life in a single blow. It was an incredible drop all at once, but then it dropped again with each step up the blade you took by about a similar amount. You impaled about half your life away yourself, and then the rest just quickly drained out as your blood pumped out.”
I did the mental math for a moment while floating there. Brandr had pierced me for apparently about 45 to 50 points of damage in a single shot to the heart. The rest of the damage was either me pushing on to take advantage of the opening to try and hug and whisper to her, or just the rapid effect of blood loss from a hole through the center of the chest.
In its own way, just this much information was amazing! Given the right chance, I probably could survive a hole being blown in my heart. Had she used a gun or something, and had the weapon traveled all the way through and not been stuck, and had someone almost instantly stopped the bleeding factor with some form of healing or magic, I think I could’ve lived through that!
But, unfortunately for me, it wasn’t a through-and-through wound, and there wasn’t anyone to stop the bleeding that it caused, so here I am again; dead.
And, the one who had killed me? She had sunk to the ground and was sitting on her knees just staring at her blade and my body. I don’t know what was going through her head, but she was just staring straight ahead with an impossible to read look on her face. Did she hear my words? Did she regret killing me? Was I her first?
Wait a moment! Isabella had killed me too, once! Was this part of the curse of ‘Bloody Hell’? Did it mean I was doomed to experience a ‘bloody hell’ at the hands of cute girls all the time in this new world? I’ve only met two other people since The Crackening, and now they both had killed me at least once! Was this my curse for not knowing how these stupid names worked?
Dammit!
One more level for CON. I’m going to stick to my goal to keep stacking con till at least level 10. Then one level to save points just in case something new and shiny is offered to me like the ‘Heal Faster’ ability. Sometime soon after that, I’m going to have to try and raise my KNO and see if that’ll help me learn more things.
Something lets Isabella know a lot more about those windows than what I’m getting, and I just hope it’s not something like her class or race. What if Ka’Lani get more information than iHumans? Or what if it’s just a wizard type advantage? There were still so many things that we were uncertain about with this system that had invaded our reality!
Frustrated, there wasn’t much I could now except wait to be reborn and practice my ‘float away’ and ‘durable ghost’ abilities. Personally, I think those sounded a whole better than Spiritual Manipulation and Spiritual Endurance. At least ‘float away’ tells you basically what it lets you do. What does ‘Spiritual Manipulation’ tell you? That you can turn your ghost into balloon looking animal shapes? Sorry, it doesn’t do that. I’ve tried.
“Hey Iz.” While I was thinking of it, I’d best say something to her. “You might want to get her to pull that sword out and move away from my body. Remember, it’s going to go up in flames in a little while, and I don’t know how hot it gets but we wouldn’t want her to lose that weapon. It’s leaps and bounds better than anything I’ve seen so far.”
Slowly, Isabella worked her way up to the front of the classroom and sat down cross-legged on the ground in front of Brandr. Cloudme’s ghost heart was up in its ghost throat fearing that she was going to provoke Brandr and die in one fell swoop as well, but the girl just keep staring straight ahead, unblinking. It was eerie and creepy, If you ask my opinion. In fact, it was eerie and creepy, even if you didn’t ask for my opinion.
Isabella slowly leaned up and put a finger up under Brandr’s chin and lifted her head slightly to try and make eye contact. Brandr blinked once or twice, and then Isabella started wiggling her fingers at her.
“What’s up?” I asked Isabella. “I thought you said she was mute. Is she deaf too?”
“She can hear just fine as far as I know,” Isabella replied in my mind. “I just wanted to let her know that I could understand her if she wanted to try and talk back to me. I thought she might enjoy knowing that there was someone left out in the world who could communicate with her. I know how lonely I felt after just a few days in the room hiding. I can’t imagine how she must feel, since in many ways, she’s always been alone.”
Cloudme basically floated circles around the two girls, and watched as Isabella spent several moments wiggling her fingers at Brandr, before she finally responded. Soon the two of them were both finger wiggling at each other, and to be honest I was feeling a little left out. In some ways, I think I understood a bit about how Brandr must feel sometimes. Cloudme can yell and scream and shout and try to talk, but no one can hear it. It’s only thanks to the party system that I can chat with Isabella while dead and hovering like this.
Time slowly ticked by, and I was afraid both girls were going to end up sitting there like a lump on a log near my corpse, but finally Brandr pulled her sword out and wiped the blood off it across my legs. I wasn’t a bloody tissue or towel to clean a sword on! It was so frustrating to be used as nothing more than an object that I tried to punch Brandr in the nose as Cloudme to teach her a lesson. (OK, if I’m honest, I tried to give her nipple a pinch and twist, but who wants to admit to trying something like that!)
As my fingers… err fist hit her nose and went through her nip.. err face, that stupid *donk donk* sound went off again and a window appeared floating in front of me.
Sorry! You do not have sufficient aptitude to possess that target!
What the hell! Possess a target? Can I really do something like that as a ghost? I reached back out and tried once again to grab Brandr’s .. umm nose.
*donk donk*
Sorry! You do not have sufficient aptitude to possess that target!
Holy hell! I had to give this a try again, so I floated over and tried to grab Isabella on her butt.
*donk donk*
Sorry! You do not have sufficient aptitude to possess that target!
Looks like at my current skill? Level? Mental Fortitude? Whatever the shit it was that let me try and possess someone, it seems like it wasn’t high enough for me to possess either of the girls right now. Maybe Lunchmeat though! He was already beat down and submissive! I might be able to possess him, if I have a chance to try! Unfortunately, it wasn’t here now, so I don’t know if I could or not.
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But one thing is certain now: Cloudme might just be able to do more than just float, hover, and try and run away from things. On one hand, it was amazing news! On the other, I’d have to die to practice, and I sure as heck didn’t want to do that without a compelling reason. I let Isabella kill me that time so she could use my life to enchant the tacks which were used to hide our ‘home’ from the goblins. I let Brandr kill me just so I could get past her blade and remind her of her father’s promise (at least, I’m going to pretend like I let her, for the sake of my manly pride.) But I’ll be damned if I was just going to die to practice possessing things. After all, who knew how high a skill you needed before you could possess even a flea?! Knowing my luck, it’d be the pain of a million deaths and then I could take control of a single fly, buzz around an enemy, and annoy it.
No thanks! There was still too much unknown about how, when, where, and why it might or might not work. Or what else – if anything – Cloudme could do. I’d keep trying to float and hover and improve the skills that Cloudme had developed so far, but I wasn’t going to go out of my way to suicide just to improve my ghost form. After all, time spent in this form is time I couldn’t spend in the Realme form, and Realme was the one who dealt with most of the trouble in the world. Realme needed more practice and learning time than Cloudme, by a long shot, in my opinion.
As I was thinking of what all Cloudme might be able to do, and ways that I might could improve myself, Brandr sheathed her sword and grabbed her belt and threw it across her torso with the blade hanging behind it. Then she leaned down, grabbed my body, and started dragging me out the door – all while she was still naked! What the heck is wrong with all the women in this new world? Isn’t there a single one with a bashful bone left somewhere in their body!
Trying not to be left out of the whatever was going on, Cloudme strained and attempted to float into the hall. I’ve gotten better at maneuvering Cloudme around some, so I was able to almost maintain a slow walking speed as I strained to float along after them. They made better time than me, but I could see that Brandr had dragged my corpse all the way down to the boy’s bathroom and that Isabella had followed her in there with it.
Curious about what they were going to try and do with my corpse in a restroom , I floated down the hall as quickly as possible and got a few different pings of skill ups with my ‘float away’ skill and ‘tough spirit’ stat. A strange tingling feeling made Cloudme’s back itch, but finally I hovered around the corner and into the bathroom…
… and I almost wish I hadn’t!
Brandr had lifted my corpse up and placed it down inside the long urinal that ran the length of the side wall, and her and Isabella were going along and flushing each and every handle along the wall. That cold tingling that Cloud me felt? That was the water in the urinal running along my body!
Such disrespect for a corpse! For my corpse!
Oh, if I wasn’t destined to come back to life in a few moments, I’d haunt them both forever!
For several long moments, I hovered there and fumed, while my corpse soaked in the cold water of the urinal. Then, not too soon for my sense of self-image to be destroyed first, I finally felt the burning that indicated the destruction of my corpse was upon me again. Steam rolled from the urinal and flames consumed my body, but didn’t spread any further.
I had just a moment to watch my ashes slowly going flowing down to clog the drain of the urinal, and then the burning of the rebirth was upon me. I hope I scared the two girls good by bursting into flame behind them, but I don’t know if I did or not to be honest. When the flame is upon you, all other thoughts fade away except for the burn.
Finally, I found myself lying on the damp restroom floor, in my new body. Coming back into existence with your face plastered to the floor of a restroom, with the smell of boiled piss and burnt flesh in the air, isn’t the best way to be reborn. But, it sure beat the alternative that all the other students here at the school had faced – simple endless death.
Slowly, I staggered to my feet as Isabella came bouncing over and hugged me. I couldn’t tell if I’d scared her or not by being reborn so closely behind them. She was up too close to me, and clenched onto my chest too tightly for me to see her face, though to be honest, this wasn’t so bad either. I suppose I can find it in my heart to forgive them for flushing me. They did manage to keep the fire from spreading to anything else by doing what they did after all.
Slowly Brandr walked over directly in front of me and then kneeled down on both knees. She pulled her sword off her back and place it in both hands and raised it up above her head to me, like one would expect to see a priestess offering up something to the gods.
Uncertain, I let go of Isabella and she stepped back to the side to watch and not interfere. Hesitantly, I took the sword with and Brandr bent over till she was fully on her hands and knees, and then she reached back with her right hand and pulled her ponytail over to the side to fully expose her neck. Instantly I thought of some old show I’d seen once where the shogun told one of his samurai to “go clean your neck and wait for me”, before beheading him just a little later.
All I could do is stand there shocked and uncertain how to proceed. I didn’t know any sort of sword custom like this, except for that old movie, and I certainly wasn’t going to chop her head off just for flushing my corpse down the pisser! For several moments, all three of us held our positions without moving.
If she was nervous waiting for me to decide whether to take her head or not, Brandr never showed it. Even knowing that I might not stay dead, I think I would’ve had my knees knocking together to be in the position she was in, waiting to see if some guy was going to chop my head off or not!
And Isabella wasn’t being any help at all. She was just standing there and watching the whole scene like a passive passerby watches a train wreck! She looked just as calm and uncaring as Brandr seemed, and I was at my wits end.
Finally, I did the only thing my frazzled brain could think to do – I called upon my knowledge of movies and I took the sword and tapped her once lightly on the left shoulder, and then I tapped her once lightly on the right shoulder, and then I finally tapped her across her left shoulder once again.
“Arise, Brandr Bergstrom!” I commanded. “Arise and accept this blade, and you shall be my blade forever more!” Damned if I know if what I did was right or not, but it was all I could think to do at all!
Slowly, she looked up and I turned and held the hilt out to her and she took it and then lightly kissed the blade. She looked at it, then at me, and then nodded her head as if something had been settled once and for all.
DING!
Congratulations!
You have acquired a true slave-sworn!
Your slave-sworn has not been named, nor branded. Do you wish to do either now?
OH! What the bloody hell had I did this time!